Kraken and MoneyGram announced a strategic partnership on May 5, 2026, that will allow Kraken users to convert cryptocurrency into cash and collect it in person at MoneyGram agent locations. The service launches across more than 100 countries, with payouts available in hundreds of fiat currencies through a physical network of roughly 500,000 retail locations spanning 200 countries and territories. For cash-dependent economies worldwide, the deal represents what executives describe as one of the most extensive crypto off-ramp buildouts to date.

How It Works

Kraken handles customer onboarding and identity verification on its end, while MoneyGram provides the licensed money transmission infrastructure and compliance framework needed to operate across multiple jurisdictions. "Digital assets only matter at scale when they can interoperate with the financial systems people already depend on," said Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, in the official press release. Users initiate the withdrawal on the Kraken platform, and funds are paid out at a local MoneyGram agent location at speeds the companies describe as instant or near-instant. Fees are variable, depending on transaction size and geography, and no fixed rate schedule has been published. Kraken has not yet publicly specified which cryptocurrencies will be eligible for conversion under the partnership. The rollout is phased, starting with the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia Pacific.

A second phase will expand the integration to include local bank deposit options and cross-border remittance-style flows, embedded across both the Kraken exchange and the Krak app. Launched in June 2025, Krak is Kraken's all-in-one global money app, supporting 600-plus fiat currencies and transfers to more than 160 countries.

Why Africa Is the Sharpest Test Case

Sub-Saharan Africa processed roughly $205 billion in on-chain cryptocurrency transaction volume in 2025, a 52 percent year-over-year increase that makes it the third-fastest-growing crypto market globally, according to Chainalysis data. Yet it remains the most expensive region in the world to receive remittances, with an average transfer cost of 8.78 percent per $200 sent, compared to a global average of 6.49 percent, per World Bank data from Q1 2025. That figure covers all traditional remittance channels, including banks, money transfer operators, post offices, and mobile operators across the region.

Many users seeking lower costs have turned to peer-to-peer trading platforms to convert crypto into local currency. P2P off-ramps carry their own cost structures, however, typically adding spreads of 1 to 5 percent above market rate, and the regulatory risk is real. In Nigeria, Africa's largest crypto market by volume, Nigeria's EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) froze 22 bank accounts belonging to USDT peer-to-peer sellers in September 2024. A licensed, compliant cash withdrawal channel through an institution as embedded in local economies as MoneyGram offers a materially lower-friction alternative for users in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa, where MoneyGram agents operate in peri-urban and rural areas with limited banking infrastructure.

The regulatory environment across the continent is also maturing in ways that make licensed off-ramp infrastructure more consequential. Kenya's Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill, signed into law in October 2025, placed oversight under the Central Bank of Kenya and the Capital Markets Authority, and stands as one of the clearest signals yet of formal regulatory maturity on the continent. Partnerships built on licensed money transmission gain added significance in markets where formal crypto regulation is now actively taking shape.

The Kraken deal does not arrive in isolation. On April 17, 2026, MoneyGram announced a separate partnership with NALA, a Tanzanian-founded payments company, to enable stablecoin-based settlement across Africa and Asia using NALA's Rafiki platform, which routes digital dollars into local bank accounts and mobile money networks. MoneyGram had begun building this kind of infrastructure earlier through a partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation to enable USDC on/off-ramps in select markets, marking the start of what has become a systematic crypto infrastructure strategy. Together, the deals suggest MoneyGram is assembling a multi-layered crypto-to-local-currency infrastructure across the continent rather than enabling one-off conversions. MoneyGram CEO Anthony Soohoo framed the company's role plainly: "MoneyGram is the distribution layer that makes crypto accessible at scale."

South Asia: A Partial Picture

The Asia Pacific scope of the rollout includes markets such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is notable because dollar-equivalent digital assets gained significant traction there during the country's 2022 economic crisis. However, Kraken is currently restricted in India due to local financial licensing requirements. That exclusion is a significant gap. India is the world's top remittance-receiving country, and the South Asia region already benefits from comparatively lower average transfer costs at 4.80 percent. The partnership's potential in South Asia will remain significantly curtailed while India remains inaccessible to Kraken users.

The Broader Off-Ramp Race

The stablecoin market now exceeds $300 billion in total capitalization, and converting that value back into spendable local currency remains what many in the industry describe as the sector's most persistent infrastructure challenge.

The model Kraken and MoneyGram are deploying, with exchange-side identity verification paired with a licensed money transmission provider and a physical agent network, offers a replicable architecture for regional exchanges and neobanks looking to add cash-out capabilities without building proprietary agent networks from scratch.

If Phase 2 delivers on cross-border remittance flows through the Krak app, Kraken enters direct competition with Western Union, Wise, and a growing field of stablecoin-native remittance startups. For users in the markets where MoneyGram agents are often the only accessible transfer point, that competition has practical consequences: lower costs and more options for getting money out.